The Wizarding Wonder
by Manic Minnie Mouse
Summary: ASOUEHarry Potter crossover. When Mr Poe runs out of guardians for the Baudelaires, there's only one place left for them to go - Hogwarts.
1. Chapter 1

DISCLAIMER: All 'Unfortunate Events' characters, situations and the style of writing are the exclusive property of Lemony Snicket/Daniel Handler. Similarly, all 'Harry Potter' characters and situations are the exclusive property of JK Rowling.  
  
To Beatrice: I loved you and you loved life, but life was not yours for the living.

Chapter 1  
  
An untrained eye can sometimes be a very unhelpful thing to have. For instance, to the untrained eye a highly dangerous minefield might look like a perfectly ordinary piece of land, and unless someone had put up a sign saying "BEWARE OF MINES" there would be nothing there to let you know that as soon as you took a step towards it you would be blown sky - high. Similarly, to the untrained eye an armed robber wanted in several counties could appear to be any other passer by, and therefore you would not notice when this robber broke into your house and ran off with the good silver. Providing, of course, that you had any good silver, and if not some other valuable item would have undoubtedly been taken in its place.  
  
To the untrained eye this might look like a pleasant and ordinary book, and therefore it is my responsibility to inform you that nothing could be further from the truth, which is that contained within these pages are some of the most horrific, tragic, disturbing descriptions of events ever recorded. As much as it is my sad and unfortunate duty to write down these events, it is not your duty to read them, and you are perfectly free to leave this wherever you may have found it and go in search of a genuinely pleasant and ordinary book which is not full of such tales of misery and woe.  
  
In fact, to the untrained eye Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry looks like a dilapidated old ruin with signs all over it saying "DANGER" and "DO NOT ENTER", but to the eye which is not untrained, Hogwarts is a spectacular mountainside building inside which is contained one of the most respected schools of sorcery in the world.  
  
It was towards this particular place that the three Baudelaire orphans were soon to be heading. Their parents had died in a terrible fire, and since then they had been living with various guardians. The first such guardian was an evil, wicked and greedy man called Count Olaf, who had made it his mission in life to get hold of the vast fortune the Baudelaires had been left in their parents' will. It was because of him that the orphans were now on their way to Hogwarts - some of their other guardians had died and some had run away, all as part of various schemes devised by Count Olaf to obtain their inheritance. But somehow the Baudelaires had always survived, and now they were in Mr Poe's car on the way to London.  
  
Mr Poe was a family friend who worked in banking. It was always his job to see that the Baudelaire orphans found their way to their various new homes. Mr Poe always did his best for the children, but for all the difference he made his job would probably have been done just as well by a carton of freshly squeezed orange juice. Even so, he had travelled all the way to England with the Baudelaires, the furthest he had ever taken them, just to ensure they reached this new home.  
  
In between repeated coughs directed at his well worn white handkerchief, Mr. Poe said "Now, children, I hope you understand you're only going to Hogwarts as an absolute last resort. There is nobody else who could possibly take you in, otherwise you would have been handed over to someone else."  
  
"It can't be as bad as the last school we went to." said Violet, the eldest Baudelaire, who was fourteen. Violet was a brilliant inventor, and whenever she was working on something she tied her hair back with a ribbon to help her concentrate. The school she and her siblings had attended before their parents died was not an unpleasant one, but in their opinon Prufrock Preparatory School, the academy they had briefly attended after working in a sawmill, had to be one of the most miserable in the country, if not in the entire world. "It's funny we've never heard about it, though." pointed out Klaus, the middle Baudelaire. He was twelve, and his hobby was reading - about anything and everything, including the best and worst of schools.  
  
"Welon." agreed Sunny, the youngest. Infant Sunny, roughly the size of a watermelon, had only four teeth, although they were sharp enough to bite through almost anything.  
  
"I'm not so sure you will get on there." Mr. Poe told them. "It's a very strange place, and very strange things have been known to happen there."  
  
The Baudelaires exchanged looks. They were all thinking that Hogwarts couldn't possibly be any stranger than anywhere they'd visited.  
  
"I mean," Mr. Poe continued, "have you ever been around magical people before?"  
  
"I've read about them." suggested Klaus helpfully.  
  
"I very much doubt," said Mr Poe, "that you have read about truly magical people. They do their best to hide their existence from people who are not involved in sorcery. Your transition to Hogwarts has had to be kept a great secret."  
  
He pulled over at the corner of a reasonably ordinary - looking street. However, the enormous person who came lumbering over towards the car did not look ordinary at all. He was the most hirsute - a word which here means 'hairy beyond belief' - creature the Baudelaires had ever seen, as his face was almost entirely hidden by a bushy beard and moustache. The children were sure they would consider him to be a werewolf if he wasn't at least eight feet tall and wearing an extremely capacious coat which seemed to be made entirely out of pockets.  
  
"G'day to you." said this enormous creature as Mr. Poe and the Baudelaires got out of the car. "Rubeus Hagrid, groundskeeper at Hogwarts, and these must be the young Baudelaire orphans?"  
  
"How do you do." said Violet politely. "I am Violet Baudelaire, and these are my brother and sister Klaus and Sunny."  
  
"Pleased ter meet yeh." Hagrid said. He looked at the watch on his wrist. "Now, if yeh don't mind, Mr. Pun -"  
  
"Poe." corrected Mr. Poe.  
  
"I think we'd better be getting on."  
  
"Well, goodbye, children." said Mr. Poe. "If anything goes wrong just send me a letter by owl."  
"Owl?" Klaus repeated. "But they're nocturnal creatures!"   
  
"That's the normal way for wizards." Hagrid informed them.  
  
"Goodbye, Mr Poe." chorused Klaus and Violet.  
  
"Chawa!" Sunny added.  
  
Mr. Poe waved as he got into his car, and Hagrid led the Baudelaires down the street.  
  
"Where are we going, Mr - er -" Klaus began.  
  
"Nothin', it's just Hagrid, an' we're goin' ter Diagon Alley ter buy yer school supplies." Violet reached into her pocket for the list they had been given and read aloud from it.  
  
"Uniform. First year students will require - are we going to be first year students, Hagrid?"  
  
"Yeh're the first Muggles the school's ever taken in!" said Hagrid, chuckling. "We can't just throw yeh in at the deep end!"  
  
"Muggles?" asked Klaus.  
  
"It's what we call non-magic folk. Ah, here we are."  
  
"Where?" inquired Violet curiously.  
  
"Our firs' stop. Gringotts, the wizardin' bank." 


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

On hearing this piece of news, the Baudelaires began to get that sinking feeling. I do not mean that they were in an elevator going down (although they had plenty of experience at that from their time at the home of Esmé Squalor, a former guardian who was now the girlfriend of Count Olaf and aiding him in his evil schemes) but rather that they were starting to feel very uncomfortable at the prospect of visiting a wizard bank in which they had no savings.  
  
"But Hagrid," Klaus pointed out, "we've only got Muggle money, we never knew we'd be going to a school for wizards."  
  
To the great surprise of all three children, Hagrid laughed. "Only Muggle money? Yer parents used ter have somethin' put inter Gringotts for yeh every month. It was their wish that if somethin' happened ter them yeh should go ter Hogwarts, but the Muggles yeh've bin stayin' with thought it best for yeh to be looked after by some distant relative."  
The Baudelaires looked at each other.  
  
"Count Olaf." said Violet and Klaus in unison.  
  
"Owa!" Sunny joined in.  
  
Hagrid looked puzzled. "Count Olaf? Who's he?"

The Baudelaires explained, and Hagrid frowned. "Bin after yer money? Yer can rest assured he won't get it at Gringotts - or you at Hogwarts. He's a Muggle, isn't he?"  
  
"We think so," said Violet, "but -"  
  
"But nothin'. Yeh're goin' ter school ter learn some magic, an' he don't know any."  
  
The thought of this meant that the children were visibly brightening as they went into Gringotts. It was nothing like Violet had ever invented, nothing like Klaus had ever read about, and certainly nothing like Sunny had ever tried to bite. Gringotts consisted of a huge marble hall, with doors leading in and out of it and hundreds of unsavoury -looking creatures behind desks. This seemed very unnerving to the Baudelaires, but Hagrid strolled casually up to one and said "Hello, we'd like ter make a withdrawal from the Baudelaire vault." He rummaged in one of the pockets of his vast coat and eventually pulled something out, which he placed on the desk. "Remembered the key for once."  
  
The unsavoury - looking creature behind the desk looked over the top of its glasses at the Baudelaires, then got down and said "Follow me, please."  
  
"Hagrid," Violet whispered as they trailed behind it, "what are those things?"  
  
"They're goblins."  
  
"But goblins don't exist!" said Klaus, forgetting to lower his voice.  
  
"Maybe not in the Muggle world." Hagrid agreed, "but they do in ours."  
  
There followed an extremely unpleasant incident in which all four were whisked underground in an extremely fast cart by the Gringotts goblin. The Baudelaires were all dizzy and staggering about by the time they had to get out of this cart, but were eager to see inside the vault. They weren't disappointed. Inside was full of gleaming piles of bronze, silver and gold coins.  
  
"So not only have we got a fortune in the bank for when I'm eighteen, we've also got one here in Gringotts." said Violet.  
Hagrid smiled. "Tha's right. Yeh won't do too badly for money while yeh're at Hogwarts."  
  
"If Count Olaf finds out about this-" Klaus said.  
  
"He'll be after it like a shot. How do we know he's not here somewhere in disguise? Or that his assistants aren't surrounding the place?" asked Violet.  
  
Olaf was not only a menacing count, he was also an actor and the boss of a theatre company which assisted his schemes. His henchmen included not only Esmé Squalor but also a bald man with a long nose, a man with hooks instead of hands, two women whose faces were always powdered white and a very blank-looking androgynous person - 'androgynous' being another word for 'difficult to tell whether it is male or female'. They were a hideously ugly bunch and always available at the click of Olaf's fingers. 

  
Hagrid, however, sighed impatiently. "There's nobody here 'cept us. If this Count Olaf's a Muggle, he won't be able ter find the way in ter Diagon Alley. If yeh were wizards I'd have taken yeh through the Leaky Cauldron, but yeh're not so we had ter go the other way."  
  
"Count Olaf might know the 'other way'." Klaus pointed out.  
  
"There's nothin' ter worry about while yeh're at Hogwarts." Hagrid said firmly. "Unless it's gettin' yer exam results."  
  
"Mowa!" said Sunny, which probably meant something like "I sure hope you're right."  
  
After leaving Gringotts, the Baudelaires went to be measured for their uniform at Madam Malkin's Robes For All Occasions, onto Flourish and Blott's for their schoolbooks and so on until nearly everything mentioned in the Hogwarts letter had been purchased. Violet took out the list again.  
"We've got everything except our wands." she said.  
Hagrid pointed across the streets. "Ollivander's. Ain't nowhere better."

Ollivander's was possibly the oldest and most decrepit building in Diagon Alley, and the ageing wizard behind the counter was possibly the oldest and most decrepit person.  
"Good afternoon." he said as the Baudelaires entered the store.  
  
"Um- hello." said Violet, feeling awkward. "I'm Violet Baudelaire, my brother is Klaus and my sister is Sunny."  
  
Mr. Ollivander nodded. "The first Muggle children ever to go to Hogwarts, I've heard all about you. Might be a bit harder to find you a wand than most. The wand chooses the wizard, remember, and you're not real wizards- but it's possible to learn at any age, depends on how much you put in. Right -" he handed Violet a wand from the shelf. "Try this one."  
  
Violet stared at it blankly.  
  
"Go on," put in Hagrid, "give it a wave!"  
  
She waved it, feeling somewhat self - conscious. At least half the boxes on the shelves opposite fell off and came crashing to the floor.  
  
"No, certainly not." Mr. Ollivander hastily took it away from her. "Try this one."

After going through at least a dozen other wands, Violet picked up one described as "ten and a half inches, holly and unicorn hair, nice and swishy" (although it looked just like any other to her) and again tried to wave it about. Instead of blowing things up or making them crash to the floor, pink bubbles cascaded out of the end.  
  
"Wonderful." said Mr. Ollivander. "Miss Baudelaire, I think we have found your wand. Now, how about this one for you." - a remark directed at Klaus - "twelve inches, ash and dragon heartstring, quite rigid."  
  
Klaus went through even more wands than Violet in his search, until he came to one which produced a jet of sparkling water.  
  
"Cwapo!" shrieked Sunny, which probably meant "Finally!"

Nobody even noticed that she had picked up a wand until Hagrid was paying for Violet's and Klaus's, when there was a loud explosion and fireworks came out of the end of a spare one in Sunny's hands.  
  
"Well, what do yeh know!" said Hagrid proudly. "I think we'll be payin' for another one!" 

And as they left Ollivanders, the Baudelaires felt more contented than they had in a long time. It looked as if their luck was finally changing for the better - although you and I know, of course, that it won't be long before another unfortunate event occurs to make Violet, Klaus and Sunny unhappy once again.


End file.
